Neil reads a poem he wrote in 11th grade about his sexual frustration
and fear of women.

He says he's always been afraid of women. He went through highschool
without a girlfriend. Then he went to Vassar college and didn't get laid
once. Then he became a rock critic, but was no more successful.

Neil says Marilyn Manson's manager remembers how Neil would call from
a girl's apartment while she was out on a date. "I was always the
nice guy."

"I toured with Motley Crue. The only person I kissed was Tommy Lee.

"One night I was at Dublins and I started making out with this girl
and I felt really good about myself. We separated and she said, 'Everyone
here must think you're a producer.' Otherwise there'd be no reason why
a girl like that would be making out with a guy like me."

A book editor at Regan Books, Jeremy, told Neil to write a how-to book
on how to pick up women. "Guys with weird names like Mystery, Ross
Jeffries, were telling people the formula on what it meant to be an alpha
male and a way to talk to women that turns them on.

"I went to the online newsgroups and tried to figure out how to
fix my problem 15-years too late."

Neil got into the seduction community because he wanted to be more successful
with women. He eventually met the pick-up artist Mystery at a work-shop.
"He was taking six guys out for four nights in a row and he was going
to teach them how to meet women and point out women in clubs and get you
to talk to them."

Mystery said you had to bring four things to his workshop: Pen, paper,
chewing gum, and condoms.

"Mystery was this 6'5" illusionist in a sports coat and goth
kit."

They met at The Standard
hotel (8300 Sunset Blvd), which is the epicenter of the seduction world.

Scott Baio turned to Neil and said, "Is this guy an illusion or
is he actually stealing my girlfriend?"

Right then, Strauss knew that this stuff worked.

Neil says there are these seduction communities in every city of the
world.

He reads an email from a guy who was running all these seduction techniques
on a woman, only to find out 20-minutes later, that she was a prostitute.

"Peacocking" means dressing to attract attention.

One email says that Halloween is a great time to pick up women because
they are hyper from all the sugar and it comes naturally to act cocky
on that night.

One email guy wonders if he should use the money he spends on seduction
courses on Tijuana hookers. When he's with such a hooker, he pretends
she's his girlfriend and that builds his confidence. When he told one
he wanted to lick her a--hole, she said that will be $10 more.

One email guy wonders which is the best anti-depressent to take for jacking
off (many drugs make ejaculation difficult) otherwise the guy will be
wanking it for 20-minutes and become exhausted.

Neil says his girlfriend was fine with the book -- except for 20 pages
and he tries to protect her from them.

Luke: "Did you get depressed hanging out with this world?"

Neil: "Before this, I was hanging out with writers and musicians,
a very exciting cool world. I never got depressed [with the seducers].
To do this, you have to leave behind your old friends. As Oprah says,
when fat people lose weight, their friends don't like that because your
weight made them feel good about their own inadequacies. Friends don't
want you changing."

Many of the seducers such as Neil rented Dean Martin's old house above
Mel's Diner with Courtney Love.

Neil says that even the best pick-up artists feel scared about approaching
women. "The better you get, the more fear there is. The first time,
all you have to do is start a conversation and that's a success."

A tall attractive woman complains that her boyfriend is addicted to using
these techniques on women.

Strauss brought up Cameron,
a Persian-American salesman by day who teaches classes on how to pick
up women (attractadate.com).

Cameron says that the only thing Mystery loves more than women is the
sound of his own voice.

For years some of us have had to suffer in silence your recurring references
to Kevin Beechum as the west coast authority and "go to guy" regarding
all matters related to organized crime.

Since I don't have a lot of time to spend on this subject let me spell
it out for you. Kevin Beechum was never a partner with Natale Richichi
or Sal Richichi at LA Video or anything else for that matter. He hung
with Sal, did business with him, operated next door to him, but never
partnered with him. Furthermore, "Big Chris" Richichi never endorsed
Beechum or allowed Beechum to be around him other than the occasional
business chat.

Kevin Beechum aint a gangster or wiseguy, aint connected to any (Hells
Angels, while stand up fellas don't count as "goodfellas" and dont claim
to) and cooperated with Feds to put Mickey away and is proud of it.

As a matter of fact, NOBODY except from this whore business even ATTENDED
Big Chris's funeral in Vegas - or even sent flowers - NOTHIN. There
were plenty of FBI guys there with video cams set up outside. Even Vegas
Mayor and friend Oscar Goodman risked bad publicity and went because
it was the right thing to do. Only one guy from LA Video went, and his
name don't matter. He knows who he is.

As for this goombah bulls--- out here - enough already. Leave it to
Pete Milano [LA Mob boss] and the Mexicans.

I meet Joanna Angel for the first time. I get her to put me on the phone
with her mom, an Israeli. (Joanna's dad has a PhD in Jewish History, but
works in business as a consultant, and Joanna was raised Orthodox).

I ask mom what she thinks about Joanna's porn career. Her mom hates it.
She says that Joanna fell in with a bad crowd and that's why she made
such a bad decision. "She doesn't understand what she's doing is
wrong."

Joanna's receiving make-up while we talk.

Mom: "What can I do? There's nothing I can do. I love her. I respect
her. I can not give my daughter up. We're all crazy about her. Her two
sisters, my husband, tried hard. We can't blame ourselves. We do everything
not to lose the relationship.

"We all thought it wouldn't continue long but it does. It becomes
more and more serious.

"Nobody knows where she got this from. I believe it is very dangerous.
I'm very sorry about it. I've very ashamed about it. It's not our way.

"She did me a favor. She stays away from the people I work with,
the synagogue I go to.

"She loves me. Usually people like that never see the parents. We
do. I don't know when it's going to stop.

"I think it's the money.

"We did everything for her. We paid for Rutgers. She's the only
person who went in that direction. I don't know if there's something wrong
with her. She seems like a normal healthy girl."

Luke: "I think it's the attention."

Mom: "She gets plenty of attention. I've never seen a person who
doesn't like Joanna.

"Maybe you'll be the one to convince her that what she's doing is
wrong."

Luke: "I try. I'm [a certain thing]."

Mom, pleased: "Oh, you are? Keep it as a secret. We'll give you
money if you can convince her. Any somebody tells her that what she's
doing is wrong, she won't talk to him. She's got a thousand people agreeing
with her. She's in the wrong crowd.

"I tell her that these people don't give a damn about her. It's
good for him and not for her. The people who work with her are destroying
her."

Luke: "She's a star in this world."

Mom: "She could be a star in any world. Why does she have to choose
this world?

"I don't know what to tell you. My only wish is that at least she
use her money to help the Jewish people. But she doesn't. Everybody tries
to suck as much money as they want from her.

"I'd do anything for her."

Luke: "Why did she go to a secular highschool instead of a Jewish
school?"

Mom: "That was very bad. I tried to fight it. My husband couldn't
pay the money for a Jewish school. He was the only income in the house.

"What she's doing doesn't take any effort.

"She loves to write. She doesn't want to take money from her parents.
She has something to live on [via porn], but she doesn't have anything
to live for.

"I can't live without my religion and culture. It's not just something
to live on, but something to live for. She does one thing for the money."

Luke: "She wants to feel like a star."

Mom: "She can feel like a star without doing that."

Luke: "But this is the easiest."

Mom: "She can write about anything."

Luke: "But that would take effort."

Mom: "Why does she have to write about this subject if she has the
talent?

"She loved [doing Jewish things] but she didn't have a friend. When
she left the house, that was a problem. The people she surrounded herself
had no values. That's why she ended up here.

"I asked her to go to my country [Israel]. My brother could help
her. She could be the representative of those people. But she can not
go down to their level.

"She's so smart that she managed to convince her sister and my husband
[that what she was doing with burningangel.com and porn] was ok. I was
against it. He's a PhD person. He says, 'Oh, that's nothing. Oh, she's
stuck.' But then she gets sucked in more and more."

Luke: "How does your husband deal with what Joanna's doing?"

Mom: "He always thought that this was not the only thing she's doing.
She's doing other things. She models. She does entertainment. Nobody can
believe that she's still doing this. Everybody says, 'Don't say anything
or you'll lose her.'

"I used to think that being smart was the most important thing.
Joanna is so smart. Now I don't think that being smart is so important.

"I wish she'd come home. She can come home anytime. But it doesn't
seem like she will. Why do this when her parents will support her?

"I hope you're not going to ruin your relationship with her by telling
her..."

Luke: "She knows what I think. I don't preach at her."

We say goodbye after more than 20-minutes on the phone. Joanna has been
looking at me much of the time, amusement and concern alternating in her
expression.

When I summarize the converstion to Joanna, she laughs. "I'd do
this for free," says Joanna. "For a date with Malachi Ecks [production
manager]. For macaroni and cheese."

Eve Mayfair: "Better than for a puppy."

Serena Sinn told me a few weeks
ago that she was going to do anal so she could buy a puppy. I've heard
more jokes about that than anything I've ever written.

I ask Joanna if she was molested as a kid.

"I wish my dad molested me," she says. "It was the other
way round. I was ignored. I would've loved for my dad to molest me. He
wouldn't even talk to me."

Malachi tells me: "You've got more material than you can use."

Neu Wave Hookers is the first feature VCA has released since LFP bought
it. The movie has four times the budget of Eon McKai's previous movies.

Dirty
Harry, a former bus driver, got his nephew T.T.
Boy (whose brother Talon is also a porn performer) into the business
in 1992. Harry's sons work in porn too. One is a cameraman (who occasionally
has to shoot his dad having sex, but they're both professionals, so it's
no big deal) and another is a PA.

Harry's been doing scene for two-and-a-half years. "I retired [from
driving a bus]. I traveled around the world. I bought a business. It went
broke. I had to get into something, so I got into porn. I PA'd [production
assistant] for a while and then I thought, why don't I do talent? I had
done a few movies for T.T. Boy in 1997. It pays more money and it's more
fun.

"I introduced T.T. in 1992 to Elliot Spegal from Western Visuals.
From there he went to Jim South's office.

"My son Jacob (in porn since 18, he's now 25) shoots camera exclusively
for T.T. and he shoots me in the movies. My other son Sean is a gaffer.
He's been in the business since he was 18.

Sean is the scariest looking guy you'll ever see (with 'Today I kill,
tomorrow I'm king' tattooed across his shoulder) but behaves in a gentle
way.

Both sons are heavily tattooed.

Harry, 54, says if it wasn't for porn, his sons would be gangbangers.
"Talon is my nephew."

Luke: "Is he still in the gay industry?"

Harry: "No, he never did that."

Luke: "Is he in the straight industry now?"

Harry: "He's in the straight industry."

Luke: "What's it like doing a scene when your son is doing camera?"

Harry: "The first time, I thought about it a little bit. Once we
got going, I forgot all about it. My son is a professional. He just does
his job.

"I hate that I got into porn so late. I work with a lot of young
girls. It's kinda hard for them because I'm a lot older.

Eve Mayfair says she's going to show this movie to her mom. She's that
proud of it. "I don't think she would freak out but my brothers would.
And you can't tell her anything without everyone finding out."

Joanna sits near me and reads Blender
magazine. While I read a chapter entitled, "Whitewashing Dictatorship
in Communist Vietnam and Cambodia," Joanna reads about rapper Kanye
West. While I study Chomsky's support for holocaust deniers, she delves
into rock 'n' roll. While I read an essay called "Chomsky and the
Media: A Kept Press and a Manipulated People," she reads an essay
called "Drugs, Hookers and Drinking in Class."

She used to be a smart girl. That's what her mom tells me.

I had an SAT score of 1135 while Joanna's was about 1460 yet I pursue
a life of the mind while Joanna wallows in the gutter of pornography.

Joanna describes to an ingenue that Lukeisback is like Cosmo magazine
with fashion and beauty tips, exercise and health, how to plan your wedding
in less than 20 days, advice for the lovelorn...

A guy says: "I thought women had their weddings planned since they
were little girls."

Joanna: "I know I have."

I should title this column: "Luke talks to Joanna's mom and makes
everything all better."

Joanna's mom saw a poster of The Repenetrator, a hardcore film Joanna
made that is filled with blood and gore.

Naomi Zen went back to the Midwest and shot paintballs at cows. When
she came back to the scene of her crime, she found a sign: "Please
don't shoot paintballs at our cows."

Carmen Luvana did a scene three months ago where she was tied up (except
for one foot free) while having consensual sex. Pornographers have rarely
combined bondage with hardcore sex but in this instance Adam & Eve
is a trailblazer.

Celebrity Skin

Thursday, I spoke to a member of the band Celebrity Skin. He talked about
the increasing attention his band was receiving. That he'd just spent
90-minutes on the phone with the Music Editor (Kate Sullivan) of the LA
Weekly. That she'd pushed him to have her boyfriend's band Tsar open
for his.

I emailed Kate Sullivan about this. I did not receive a reply.

Full disclosure, I've chatted with Kate several times socially and once
pitched her a story about the 30th anniversary of Air Supply.

LOS ANGELES – The FBI is reportedly investigating allegations that
a performer using the name Mieke Michele Jackson was underage while
working in the adult industry.

Jackson was allegedly using the stage names Seduction and Chantae.

Aurora Snow Is Back

She looked messed up on drugs for a while but she's back. She seems clean.
And she's directing (with the confidence of a Martha Stewart) for Defiance
Films, which has the money to make a big splash. I know. I've been on
their sets. Granola bar galore.

Once you've signed up for all of them, go through their hosted galleries
and make a list of the ones that have porn stars. Then whenever you
mention that porn star, hotlink her name with that gallery. If you don't
have a gallery for her, then link to one of her movies with your affiliate
code from DVDEmpire.com.

Eon is even more of a worthless posuer whore than Dana. Maybe he can
go impersonate a rapper and do some hip hop porn next. I wanted to think
he had a vision, when in reality he's such a little wannabe emo fag
its sad. Point in case, Art School: Kei was told I want a goth girl
for my goth movie... she gets to set and he dresses her all emo and
in pastel blue and shit. Not to mention the Scene i did for him for
KgK2 where the asshole told me all week i was domming this girl and
she gets there and shes like "ok, wheres the guy im domming.... " a
5' tall Dom girl and a 5' 10 Dom guy... no one in there right mind would
book that.. it started off strong but we cancelled each other out and
just went through the motions, after the scene he goes, "its ok, i didnt
plan on using this scene anyway i purposely booked an extra". but beyond
that his "Alt porn" persona is a f---ing image that he hides behind
to try to get the kids to think hes cool. Everything is about "street
cred" Even his namesake called him a poseur in an interview. If you
want Goth Porn, look in my direction. If you want someone who rapes
"alterna subcultures" because he sees dollar signs, look at the man
who wont even show his face...

Eon McKai responds: "Rob I'm sorry you fell that way your [bad]
scene will appear on KGK3 as an extra scene, so it's not shelved."

Eon's production manager Malachi Ecks writes on XPT:

I'm sorry you feel that way too Rob. I always found you affable, and
I thought we were cool; but I guess not. We make no money because we
don't crank out movies all of the time. There are more dollar signs
in teens, all anal, or something normal for porn. Your captious enmity
feels so left field to me. The best/worst/interesting thing is: The
scene isn't cut yet. The girl was horrible to you; I felt bad because
she sucked and wasn't what she was perceived and presented to me as.
As far as I knew the scene was going to be cut to make you look great.
You might have just dug your proverbial grave on this one.

I just broke up with a "well known" director in the industry, so I
am now available. However until I get over the gonorrhea that this "talented
and respected" pornographer gave to me (as a token of his love and affection)...
just jack off on my back!

A large component of the erotic thrill in watching porn used to be the
shame the women performing in it so clearly felt. But in the last few
years, the porn women don't seem to feel any shame. That means the pornographer
must degrade them all the more so the consumer can still get that same
erotic charge.

Keiko says she's got 15 performers who are willing to work for free to
make a porn video whose proceeds will go to the Red Cross. "If we
get enough people to participate in the auction, that will cover the printing
and duplication costs," she says.

Keiko says she's got a fetish model who doesn't do hardcore to do hardcore
for this good cause.

Higher gas prices bestow numerous benefits.

Seymour says all the bar owners he knows (presumably in the Valley) say
their establishments are fuller than normal because people aren't driving
over the hill to the city as often and aren't going out of town.

My commute Tuesday was a joy. It took me 30-minutes to drive from Beverly
Hills to Canoga Park (9:20am - 9:50am) and the same time to come back
(1:45pm - 2:15pm). There are new signs on the highway giving an estimated
time of arrival to major freeway interchanges and to the downtown.

Seymour says that when the Carpenters died, music died for him.

Serena
is a fetish model from Chicago. "I'm fresh meat," she says.
"I've only done one movie."

I spot her with Steve Nelson from AINews. Then Rusty Nails moves in for
the kill. He wants a roommate.

Anthony Hardwood, 37, did his first scene for Patrick Collins in 1996
in Budapest. Since then, he's done about 800.

He grew up in a small town (Onoshaza) 150 miles from Budapest. He was
constantly in trouble and ran with a gang. "Somebody almost killed
me. I got shot in my thigh."

Anthony says life didn't change much when communism ended in his country.
The Hungarian economy struggles.

"I love f---ing and I hate diseases."

He's lived in America for seven years. "You just get married [to
get a Green Card]."

Anthony says one of the highlights of his time in porn was a boy-girl-girl
scene he with Jenna Jameson and Monica Sweetheart (even though he didn't
have sex with Jenna as she is exclusive to her husband Jay Grdina).

Anthony recently lost his girlfriend of nine years. She's a mainstream
model who would no longer put up with him working in porn. "When
you're f------ five, six, seven girls a week, when you go home, you don't
want to be sexual."

Hardwood works as a personal trainer.

I interview Brittney
Skye. "I always wanted to be a cheerleader. I always wanted to
be pretty. I was a cheerleader for two years in highschool.

"Since an early age, I've had a thing for blonde girls with big
boobs."

Skye got her's six years ago (she entered porn two years later). She
worked in retail before porn.

"I didn't do that good [in school] once I discovered boys and snowboarding."

Brittney started having sex at age 13 and slept with about 15 guys by
the time she graduated.

She began smoking marijuana at 16.

Duke: "What are your ambitions?"

Brittney: "Make money and retire. Travel. Marry and have kids and
a big house. Be president of the PTA.

"It's been a while since I've had a boyfriend I actually like, more
than in the bedroom.

"At first [guys] are ok with [Brittney being a porn star], but once
they start caring, they don't like it anymore. At my stage of life, I
just say goodbye. I can't take a break and come back in a year and expect
to be as busy and make as much money as I do now.

"I wanted to be a vet, then I wanted to be a lawyer, then psychology.
I changed so many times. I had big goals planned for my life and here
I am.

"My parents never expected anything. I was a straight-A student.
Very focused. They never pressured me. Just do what makes me happy. Very
supportive.

"I graduated early [from highschool]. I went to three different
colleges and I didn't graduate from any of them.

"My [older] brother was worried [when Sammie entered porn]. He didn't
say anything. It made him uncomfortable. He heard everything from his
friends. My sister was thinking I was the devil and I was ruining my parents
life. Just very bitter and very angry. My parents are accepting if I'm
safe and I'm happy and I'm doing well for myself.

"Since I've been out here, I've cleaned up my life. Just being young
and destructive and the usual teenage find-your-life pattern. A lot of
drinking and my fair share of everything. Now I just want to be straight
and sober."

Duke: "Porn helped you get straight?"

Sammie: "My agent Skooby. He whipped my ass in shape real fast.
The first week I got here, he said, 'Uh uhh. You've got to cut that s---
out. You're here to work. Not go out and get wasted and not be able to
show up.'"

Duke: "What prompted you to get into porn?"

Sammie: "Since the beginning of time, I've been way too sexual for
my own good. Since six years old. I held off."

A businesswoman from next door walks up looking for the stage manager.
It doesn't bother her that people make pornography next door. It bothers
her when they use some of her rarely-used parking spaces.

Sammie: "I waited until I was 16 before I had sex. I was with a
mainstream modeling agency in Connecticutt. I moved to Boston. Some guy
got a hold of my pictures and asked me if I'd do adult modeling. I said,
'Are you crazy?' He said, have dinner with me.

"The next thing I know, I'm doing a girl-girl scene. Then a boy-girl
scene. Then I'm out here (May 26, 2004) and I'm doing boy-girl. It happened
so fast."

For the past three months, Sammie has only done girl-girl.

Duke: "When you're dating someone outside the industry, how do they
react to your being a porn star?"

The film is directed by James Avalon and distributed by Red Light District
films. Redlight is venturing out into the features market and 'Darkside'
is very impressive. Its about a women (Penny Flame) whose sex fantasies
become real. She has to battle a psycho husband, his bodyguards, and
other challanges in order to get back to normal. The film was playing
on several big screens during the party and looks amazing. I think Redlight
has a film that could sweep all the awards next year. Holly Wellin,
Sunny Lane, Missy Monroe, Dillon Lauren, Alicia Alighetti, Alex Rox,
Randy Spears, Tommy Gunn, Herschel Savage, etc are in the film. Sunny
plays a cheerleader in the movies and has the best scene in the movie
with Holly Wellin, Alex Rox, and a blonde girl. Sunny will likely go
far in the business, I was very impressed when I met her at the party.
She's very professional and takes her job seriously which is going to
put her at the top of many director's lists. She's also highly intelligent.

Rita Faltoyano was there supporting her new husband, Tommy Gunn. She
looked very pretty. Kylie Ireland was there too. Lexie Marie came in
with Penny Flame and her group. She's one of the new Vivid Girls. Barbara
Summer accompanied Dillan Lauren. Jenaveve Joli, Lexi L'Amour and hubby,
and Tyler Houston were also at the party.

Tia Brodie Update

She writes:

I've been working my ass off since I've been back - upon my return
I found that my room mate trashed my house and went to Spain, leaving
me in debt with a phone bill of £450...my car was nearly repossessed
too.

I'm getting back on track now - been dancing quite a bit - also had
one modelling job and done a solo movie.

As you may remember, i have a couple of agencies out here...well a
new interactive TV show similar to Nightcalls is launching next week
and they have asked me to find them girls for castings - I have around
20 to send so hopefully I will earn good money out of that. I should
be in San Francisco mid September and maybe returning to the Valley
for a visit shortly after.

Am unsure as to how long I will stay but I am so tired with England
and miss everyone in LA terribly - I feel like I belong in LA; there
is nothing here for me in England anymore.

The good news is my (estranged) husband has agreed to a divorce too
so I will be totally FREE! He was cool when I asked him, so all loose
ends will be tied up. Anyway, give my love to everyone...I think of
you all on a Tuesday because I miss the karaoke!

The book is remarkable in two ways. First, it presents a greater amount
of hard data than I have ever seen on this topic before. Second, the
interviews are amazing. Where does she find these people? The military
man who masturbates by the side of the highway, the child porn addict
who fantasizes about the girls he is teaching in Sunday school, the
adult virgins with the almost clinically precise descriptions of what
they expect in a woman (“I’m a big fan of full shaved,” etc.).

Upon reading this title, I immediately thought, "This will be fair
and balanced. Definitely superior to that wanker Alex de Tocqueville and
his toadying Democracy
in America. At least with this Andrew Gumbel chap, he won't be constantly
bending over backwards to tell us how much he loves us. He'll give it
to us straight. "

How could one find anything more disinterested than the work of a journalist
from Britain's in-the-middle-of-the-bat Independent
newspaper published by the evenhanded Nation
Books?

My own bias is that voting rights should be made difficult to keep morons
away from the ballot box (morons usually vote for Democrats and more government
entitlements). I'm in favor of literacy tests. I'm for restricting voting
rights to those who own property. I don't want felons voting. I don't
want people voting who are afraid to show ID in case they are picked up
for parole violations or warrants.

"I did a piece for the Independent in 2003 looking into the shortcomings
of electronic voting machines. I talked to a lot of computer science experts
and voter-rights activists and became hooked on the subject.

"I felt from the way people reacted to that initial piece for the
Independent that I should take it further. People were taken aback by
the whole Florida battle between Bush and Gore and their legions of lawyers.
The incomprehension carried over when it became clear that the new generation
of machines that came in to replace the old punch cards were no better
and in some ways more frightening in their scope for foulplay and malfunction.

"What kind of democratic culture does the United States have and
where does it come from and why is the United States materially different
from a lot of other democracies around the world. Here we have the world's
most powerful democracy that goes around lecturing the rest of the world
on the need for democratic values. Why they can't get their own democratic
act together. It's a compelling subject and as I looked around, I realized
that nobody had ever asked that question and attempted to answer it in
a book-length format."

Luke: "Is the American voting system that much more dodgy than England
or Australia or any other democracy?"

Andrew: "Yes. The whole mechanics of voting in the US is different.
There are many more races on the ballot in the US than any other country
I know of. On the one hand, that gives the impression that democracy is
thriving. On the other hand, it creates a lot of logistical problems.
As we've discovered with hurricane Katrina [and the inadequate government
response to its affects], government in the US has been denigrated, downgraded
and depleted over the past 30 years and election offices are no different.
You're trying to organize this massive logistical exercise with limited
resources. When you go back over the history, you realize that this has
not only always been the case, but that it has been cultivated that way
because it makes it that much easier for the political parties to manipulate
things their way. The profusion of races at election time also means that
you can't do what other countries do -- use straightforward paper ballots
and count them by hand. That's impractical in an American setting.

"The overarching problem is that it is the two major political parties
who are in control of most of the political power structure in this country.
It is in both of their interests to keep the system a certain way and
discourage third parties. They've developed this Hobbesian attitude towards
the way elections happen. If one happens to be in control of one county
or one state and plays fast-and-loose with the figures, coerce people
at the ballot box, arrange for people who are dead or unregistered to
have their votes counted anyway, there's been an understanding that they
won't rock the boat with the other party because both of them do it when
they have the chance. There's a fundamental attitude that elections are
a visceral struggle rather than having anything to do with fairplay."

Luke: "Do these problems make a difference?"

Andrew: "Absolutely. There are cases of electoral fraud where we
can be confident [that fraud gave the wrong result]. One famous example
is John Kennedy's margin in Cook
County, Chicago. It was staggering and helped him win Illinois and
propelled him into the White House.

"Another example is the 2002 governor's race in Alabama. The Democratic
candidate was all set and then a Republican county judge in rural Alabama
decided, after most if not all of his staff and volunteers had gone home,
that there had been a computer error (never explained) and that 7,000
votes awarded to the Democrat belonged to the Republican. That alone switched
the result of the election. And when the Democracts demanded a recount,
they were turned down by a Republican.

"People shouldn't be deluded into thinking that cheating is the
province of one party. My conclusion from looking at the record is that
both of them do it when they get the chance."

Luke: "The Independent in British terms is centrist and in American
terms it is center-left?"

Andrew: "I don't think anybody in this country had much of an opinion
about the Independent until September 11, 2001. There's a broad consensus
overseas that the Bush administration [since 9/11] has been intrinsically
alarming, which in turn triggers a chain reaction here among the screamers
on Fox News and elsewhere. That we must be left-wing lunatics."

Luke: "But you guys are left of center?"

Andrew: "I wouldn't say so. The paper was founded in 1986 because
The Times, which used to be the paper of record in England, was taken
over by Rupert Murdoch. It wasn't so much the politics that changed as
the quality.

The Independent had a notion that it should be a newspaper that was interested
in the world, that wanted to present facts in an intelligent way, and
presented an array of opinions. The paper is politically nonaligned. It
calls itself the Independent for a reason.

"I've tried in the book not to express a preference for one party
or the other. My biggest criticism is of the system as a whole."

Andrew says there's no evidence that George Bush stole Ohio and the 2004
election.

The case I make on Gore's behalf rests much more strongly on other
factors, especially the wholesale disenfranchisement of tens of thousands
of overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning African-American voters.

Andrew: "Starting in the late 90s, the establishment in Florida
decided to draw up a list of people who should not be allowed to vote.
And it was based on their criminal records. As it is, Florida has unusually
repressive rules about who can vote because there is no automatic restoration
of voting rights for felons after they have completed their sentences.

"Florida's prison population is disproportionately African-American
and Hispanic. You have an inbuilt bias against African-Americans based
on that when they get out of prison, they don't have their voting rights
restored."

Seven states, all in the South, do not allow their ex-felons to vote.
"These are all states with a bruising records of race relations.
Former members of the Confederacy. States that indulged segregation and
Jim Crow laws.

"On
top of that, this [Florida] purge list (about 180,000 names) was not
done properly. We know that those county officials who took the trouble
to check found that the overwhelming majority of the names on the list
were not valid, such as in Leon County, where the election supervisor
found that 95% of the names on the list were wrong, so he threw it out.
But many other counties didn't check.

"We're talking about tens of thousands of people, who were likely
to have voted for Al Gore in overwhelming numbers, who were prevented
from voting. Remember that George Bush took the state by an official margin
of 537 votes."

Luke: "Are you saying that it is a denial of voting rights to not
allow felons to vote?"

Andrew: "It is unusual for their voting rights not to be restored
once they've completed their criminal sentence. I feel that without question
that once people have paid their debt to society, I can't think of a reason
that you would deny them the right to vote. I also see no reason why at
least certain categories of felons should necessarily have their voting
rights denied. Two states, Maine and Vermont, do penalize felons in this
way. Perhaps it should be left up to the judge.

"The US has a much bigger prison population than any other industrialized
country. That population in turn has expanded dramatically in the past
30 years because of the war on drugs and the explosion of prosecutions
of mostly poor people on mostly petty drug offenses. In California, you
have the Three Strikes law which openly targets people who've been charged
on petty drug-related offenses, who, on their third strike end up going
down for life. That's a gross injustice. There's a large movement of people
in California who feel the same way."

Luke: "What's petty about committing certain drug felonies?"

Andrew: "We're talking about people who've been sentenced to life
in prison for stealing a slice of pizza, for stealing a pack of batteries."

Luke: "They had to have had committed two other felonies before
that."

Andrew: "But all three strikes were crimes of that nature -- petty
thievery with a view to purchasing drugs to feed their own habit.

"I was in Berlin when the Berlin Wall came down with the massive
street protests against the communist regime. Later, I was in Belgrade
they had massive street demonstrations against Slobodan Milosevic when
he tried to deny the opposition the fruits of their victory in a series
of local elections. I was in Albania for a couple of elections, one which
was manifestly stolen.

"I came to the United States in the middle of the impeachment thing
[against Bill Clinton], and I couldn't help feeling that whatever else
your opinion was of Henry Hyde and Kenneth Starr and all those people,
great grassroots advocates of representative democracy they were not.
Then the 2000 election happened, which happened to be the strangest exercises
in democracy that I've ever witnessed. It left me feeling queasy. When
the whole thing was over, I felt lousy. I went for a bike ride and could
barely make it up the hill to my house. I was nauseated by what I had
seen."

Luke: "Wouldn't you have felt the same way if George Bush had won
by a landslide?"

Andrew: "What made me queasy was not the result, but the way they
got there.

"In my chapter on the 2000 election, I bookend it with what happened
in Washington State where you had a similarly close race in the Senate
race. The morning after, the Republican appeared slightly ahead, but they
hadn't counted the absentee ballots. They knew that the machines for counting
the votes were not especially accurate.

"The local democratic culture in Washington is healthier than Florida,
which has a long tradition of fraudulent elections and results being overturned
in the courts. The other thing that was different was the nature of the
political battle. With the presidency, both political parties were focused
on winning at all costs rather than making sure that the appropriate outcome
came to pass.

"In Washington State, the two candidates agreed on the rules and
sat back and waited. After a few weeks, it turned out that the Democrat
was ahead and the Republican conceded. There were no lawyers involved.

"There was an obvious thing done in Washington State that was not
done in Florida -- count all the votes and as accurately and fairly as
possible with a uniform standard on the way they were counted."

Luke: "Do you deal with things like Proposition
200 in Arizona which denied illegal aliens the right to vote."

Andrew: "If you're not a citizen, you're not allowed to vote anyway.
Proposition 200 was not about voting rights but access to public services
like health care and education."

Luke: "It didn't have anything to do with voting rights?"

Andrew: "It had nothing to do with voting rights. If you're not
a US citizen, you don't have the right to vote. Full stop.

"Arizona is an interesting case in one respect. There's a been a
tremendous amount of teeth gnashing about the way people get registered
to vote and their eligibility for absentee voting. In Florida, there was
tremendous suspicion and material evidence to suggest that people were
being discriminated against when they applied for voter registration and
absentee ballots, based on where they lived and what their likely voting
patterns were. In Arizona, to my great pleasure, that doesn't exist at
all. If you want to register to vote, you can mail it in, you can fax
it in, and you get your registration card within 24 hours."

Luke: "Proposition 200 in
[Arizona] requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and proof
of identity when voting, so it does have to do with voting rights."

Andrew: "I forgot about that aspect. The question of presenting
identity cards at polling stations is a fraught one. If things were managed
honestly, there would be no reason why that wouldn't be a respectable
requirement. The problem is because of various historical ways that votes
have been suppressed and fiddled with, there's a tremendous amount of
suspicion in minority areas, in black areas, that the requirement to bring
ID is a way of intimidating people who may have outstanding warrants,
unpaid parking tickets, unpaid library fees, wanted for parole violations...
And therefore, the requirement to have ID is seen as a mechanism for suppressing
votes among a certain chunk of the population who may be living hand-to-mouth
and are afraid of authority because they can't make ends meet in an honest
way from one month to another."

Luke: "Do you buy that?"

Andrew: "It's a genuine concern. You've got to accept that that
is the way they think. There's an argument to be made that [requiring
a photo ID] does act as a vote suppression mechanism.

"I'm agnostic on the ID question, at least in theory. In practice
I'm against anything that suppresses what is already a dismally low turnout
rate."

Luke: "Why do you think low turnout is a bad thing?"

Andrew: "I start my book by saying that the only ideological position
I take in the book is that representative democracy is a good thing and
the more representative the better. That particular debate is not undertaken
honesty in the US. The genuflecting to representative democracy in public
discourse is not reflected in the way the voting system works. There are
people who feel that those who are ignorant of what is going on politically
shouldn't vote. Or that those with any kind of blemish on their character
should be disqualified. My own take is that if you have voters who are
ignorant, you need to educate them, not exclude them. If people feel disaffected,
you need to find ways to bring them into the process. I think that the
strength of a society is measured by the participation of its citizens."

Luke: "In the voting participation?"

Andrew: "Once you start deciding that some people aren't worth bothering
with, that the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile are inferior,
that is a dangerous road to tread."

Gumbel said that in the early part of the 19th Century, the US led the
world in suffrage rights, but towards the end of the century, the captains
of industry and political elites decided "to rip the heart out of
the American electorate. And they were very successful. Not only did they
disenfranchise blacks in the South, but the entire working class, the
bottom 50% of the electorate by the introduction of literacy tests, character
tests, moving poll stations around, restriction information on where the
polling stations were... You went from a voter turnout rate of 80% to
50% and the country's never recovered.

"Only in the United States is there a close correlation between
those who don't show up to vote and their [low] socioeconomic status."

Luke: "If people have the opportunity to vote but choose to do other
things with their time, what's wrong with that?"

Andrew: "It's more complicated. There is something intrinsically
wrong with a political system that turns off so many people."

Luke: "Couldn't you just as easily argue that there's something
right with the political system that so many people don't care to vote?"

Andrew: "I vehemently disagree with it. If people aren't voting
in the US, it isn't because they are happy with the way things are, but
because they see their vote as pointless (because of things like gerrymandering)."

Luke: "There are a lot of countries with higher voter participation
rates than the US but I don't see any of them as being cites on a hill
in comparison to the US. I've lived in Australia, where there is almost
universal voting because people get fined if they don't vote. I fail to
see any practical difference with the US."

Andrew: "I've been to Australia. I'd argue that there's more vigorous
debate about policy questions in Australia than the US. And the media,
part of which is owned by the state, is much more informative about not
only Australia but the wider world as well. There is much more of a culture
of awareness in Australia about how the world works and what Australia's
role is in it."

Luke: "What's wrong with having a literacy test before someone can
vote?"

Andrew: "If you believe that everyone has the right to vote, then
anything that impinges on that is hostile to that idea. Why shouldn't
people who are illiterate be able to vote?"

Luke: "Because they're not smart enough."

Andrew: "Why do you need to be smart to vote? All you need to know
is what it is you care about and have the issues that impact you explained
to you.

"If you write off whole categories of the country, then the political
system will pay them no heed, which is what we've got in the US. We have
a huge underclass and tremendous degrees of malnutrition, poor education,
poverty."

Luke: "Thanks Andrew."

Andrew: "Thanks for challenging me. Most people don't. You'll be
interested to know that I had to concentrate on the conversation hard
enough that I picked up one loaf of bread the entire time we've been talking."